


absence casts the longest shadows

by boarsnsmores



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-22 03:45:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11959020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boarsnsmores/pseuds/boarsnsmores
Summary: It’s like Regina’s remembering a ghost of a ghost, the truth of her life smudged and written over until there was only myth. And Emma dreams, sometimes, of a world and age she never could have lived.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bouquetemoji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bouquetemoji/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the place you escape to [ART]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11850324) by [bouquetemoji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bouquetemoji/pseuds/bouquetemoji). 



The White Kingdom and the Black Kingdom have always been at war, a truth so long-standing it might as well have been divine decree.

The Queen of the White Kingdom stands with her armies, rallies them to glorious victories. She is a queen of her people and for this, they would gladly give a thousand lives for her. The Queen of the Black Kingdom sits atop a throne carved from the bones of her enemies, larger than any mortal life. She is a queen whose fearsomeness staves off terrible things and promises even worse for disobedience. For this, her people would die a thousand deaths.

The universe is a slow moving river, still as stone until the waves snap up to drag one under, abrupt and violent. And so it comes to be that the Queen of the White Kingdom and the Queen of the Black Kingdom both find themselves with child, for immortality is a lofty goal for a mortal life and if divine decree is to stand then there must be pawns to uphold it.

In her daughter, for Queen Snow knows she will birth a daughter, she sees a future, prosperous and peaceful, one in which her daughter never knows the intimate sounds of war. For this, she will fight until the Black Kingdom is no more.

In her daughter, for Queen Cora knows she will birth a daughter, she sees a future, long-lived and hers, one in which she will rule immortal and all-powerful with her daughter besides her, her harbinger of war. For this, she will fight until the White Kingdom is no more.

But these daughters are but their mothers’ dreams, too young to bear such heavy burdens, and these Queens find themselves ill-suited to both childbearing and large-scale warfare.

A truce, then, and how the two of them bandy about it! Armistices of sharp tongues and sharper spears, neither willing to speak freely for fear of appearing weak lest the other tear into them like a blooded swine.

The absolute nature of divine decree wavers, a movement just large enough to rouse an old god into curious wakefulness. He is a weaver of the fates, the patron god of tricksters, a god capricious enough that his faithful dare not whisper his name, lest they invoke him along with it.

He plays arbiter in this pretense (for he is an old god, and understands that reality is a fickle thing), stealing away both Queens and their burdens in the dead of night and tells them, “A truce can be had, should you be willing to pay the price.”

And these queens, so close to divine as to skim godhood, know to listen when an old god speaks.

“Your child you must give.” He tells them.

And at this they both protest, for even to end this war they could not give up that which was most precious to them, but the old god insists, his crocodile teeth and crocodile tears sharp in the moonlight, “You must give your child to the other, for a lie sown from a forgotten truth can only be ended when its inheritors reclaim their own truths.”

Good advice for they who could not take it. Divinity, after all, is an absolute thing, and he is a trickster god, after all, weaver of as many falsehoods as he is of truths.

Magic cannot solve a problem rooted in human folly.

“But be wary,” he decrees, “for if the princess of the White Kingdom and the princess of the Black Kingdom ever meet, it heralds the end of both your reigns.”

And so they hear their truths.

* * *

Snow White delivers Emma to the guards at the trenches between the White and Black Kingdoms. The fairies present at Emma’s birth have all blessed her - to be good, to be strong, to be enough to return home. Snow White kisses the brow of her child and whispers to her the blessing of the animals. It will be a long time before Snow White ever sees her again but she knows, a truth etched in her bones, that it will not be a lifetime.

Cora sends a guard to leave Regina at the trenches, swaddled in fine blankets and the strongest curses Cora could cast. A blight upon Snow White, her house, her kingdom. Terrible illnesses to those who would slight Regina, death against those who would harm her. Cora knows that Regina will return to her, sooner rather than later. She is, after all, her mother’s daughter.

And in this way, there is an unsteady peace.

* * *

Regina does not know a mother’s love in this universe either; the softness of her step could not dull the sharpness of Cora’s shadow. And where Regina was curious, Snow saw naught but treachery. Snow cannot help but look at Regina and remember that her child is not with her.

It is David instead who understands that Regina is not her mother’s sins; this lets him be kind. He teaches her maths and diplomacy, how to care for the livestock and ride the horses because Regina has always had a way with animals. Most importantly, he teaches her to be good and kind.

It reminds Snow of the daughter she should have had.

* * *

Emma does not know the meaning of home in this universe either; her desperate attempts to please Cora are met only with disappointment that she is not more. Emma has a knack for magic and Cora cannot help but be reminded that this child may be her usurper one day if she cannot control her.

It is Henry instead who understands that Emma is not her mother’s sins; this lets him be kind. He teaches her that her hands can grow life, lets her beat him in sword fights because for all of Emma’s competency with magic, she’ll always prefer a fistfight. Most importantly, he teaches her to be brave and righteous.

It reminds Cora of the daughter she should have had.

* * *

(It was foolish of them to think that they could ever be enough, their lives bargained away before they could lay claim to them.)


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes, Regina wonders why she bought a king-sized bed when a queen-sized bed would have suited her just fine. This entire house, really, is far too big for her. A voice from a time she can’t recall precisely whispers that she should only ever settle for the best. That sounds honest, but not quite right, like a puzzle piece to another copy, cut slightly wrong. Regina frowns, trying to pull on a loose thread back to the exit.

Her second alarm rings, and the thread goes slack. Try as she might, she can’t fumble for it again and must concede that it must have not been that important.

* * *

_“Help!” A voice cries out, interrupting Regina’s daydream. She comes out here with Bug sometimes, just to be alone. The weight of a half-mantle is heavier than an entire one, sometimes._

_(And, this is important, David had taught her to be good)_

_Regina saves a princess, not with hair as black as her mother’s window frame or lips as red as roses, skin as white as snow, but a gangly thing with hair of the risen sun and eyes reckless like the wild horses._

_“Emma.” She introduces herself, bowing awkwardly._

_“Regina.” She returns, curtseying with greater success._

_“That’s a nice name.” Emma says and tries it on her tongue, “Re-”_

“-ina! Think you’ve finished brushing your horse. You doing alright?” The stablehand asks.

Regina blinks herself back to this reality. “Fine, fine, Daniel. Thanks. Just thinking about-just daydreaming a bit.”

“Well, head in the game and eyes on the road, okay?” He says in farewell, off to tend to the other horses in the stable.

And she could have sworn in the dream she saved a girl with blonde hair, but when she remembers the memory, the girl has black hair and a face too innocent for her eventual tragedies. Regina shakes it off. It’s a nice dream, but in this lifetime Regina’s never been a hero, just an enforcer born of necessity until they put her on a horse and told her to write parking tickets and catch foot crimes.

* * *

“Mills! You’d better have a good explanation for this!” the captain yells into her cellphone.

“It’s not polite to yell at the sick. Sir.” Regina says, fumbling the phone with her left hand.

“You’re not sick, you got shot! Backup was en route; all you had to do was follow and not engage! Not jump your horse like this is the fucking derby and you’re going for the gold right into the barrel of a gun!”

“I knew I’d be fine, sir. I had-”

“You had what, Mills? Faith in a god above? A guardian angel? ‘Cause you sure as shit didn’t have backup! I’d fucking fire you as my ward if I had to watch you throw yourself into danger like you think someone’s always going to pull you out. Only reason you got a job still now is because the mayor thinks you’re some fucking hero and I can’t fire the department’s newest hero. But we’re gonna have words, Mills, mark my fucking words, about how we don’t play cowboy lone star hero!”

Regina hears the phone slam dramatically before the line cuts out. Idly, and probably because of the painkillers, she wonders if that’s why the captain keeps a landline. Some sort of anger management tactic.

* * *

The captain puts Regina on mandatory leave. She tries to argue that she’s fine. Even paperwork’s better than being benched. Two weeks is plenty of time to revolutionize the department’s hilariously outdated organization system and browbeat anyone who complains into compliance. The captain points out the hole in her arm and threatens her with a mandatory psych review instead. Regina goes on mandatory leave.

It’s not bad, but it does mean a lot of time binge watching Netflix in between her ever surmounting and increasingly frequent existential crises.

Regina can’t believe this is where not buying milk got her.

* * *

Regina runs out of milk on the third day. She remembers this because there is not much else to remember and because she remembers it like it had been an idle annoyance - someone else was supposed to be responsible for making sure they had enough groceries and it wasn’t Regina.

Only, there is no ‘they’ in Regina’s life - kids aging out of the system don’t tend to leave with lifelong friends or a habit of finding and keeping them. There’s no chore wheel taped to Regina’s fridge because Regina is meticulous and organized and the idea of needing a chore wheel is, quite frankly, offensive.

_“Your attempts to manipulate the chore wheel are neither nor subtle nor appreciated, Ms. Swan.” She drawls. Emma is blatantly rearranging the name tags._

_“Hey, I’m being responsible here. Someone’s gotta do it.” She’s written SEX TALK on the chore wheel._

_“Someone also had to get the milk.”_

_“Shit, was that me? Couldn’t be. I see your name here.” And Emma moves the ‘REGINA’ magnet over to the ‘GET GROCERIES’ chore._

Right. There’s also no milk, which is where this dilemma started.

* * *

It’s the grocery store that does her in. She’s reading the milk label when the background music cuts out to a harried employee. “Will the mother of-” some scuffling sounds, a small child crying, “Hansel please come to the front? Again, will the mother of Hansel please come to the front? We’ve got your kid.”

The intercom cuts back to the music, the ending bars of some latest hit.

_“Hey. This is gonna be our song.” Emma says. They’re drinking in a bar that barely escapes being labeled as a dive. Emma had wanted to show Regina Boston._

_“This is not going to be our song.” Regina says. “I refuse to have something as inane as ‘our song’ and in the unlikely case that I did allow for it, I certainly wouldn’t allow it to be that song here.”_

_“Our song.” Emma says again, “C’mon, we gotta dance. It’s the rules.”_

_And Regina lets herself be dragged along. They can have a song, she guesses._

* * *

Regina dramatically clears off her work desk at home, pens and papers scattering to the ground. When she makes captain, she’ll be sure to keep the landline. There’s something cathartic about these grandiose sweeping motions.

(She has to pick up the pens and papers first because Regina is meticulous and orderly until she’s not and also she needs a pen and paper.)

Regina is going to make detective sooner rather than later. Everyone in the precinct knows it. She’s studied old case files, reviewed old tests, and badgered every detective she could. Fortune favors the prepared in their line of work.

This is good practice. And a sanity check, if she’s being honest.

Regina writes down what she knows:

  * Emma Swan



And that’s about it. A check into records reveals no Emma Swan, no Emma’s or Swan’s who’ve been reported who match the woman in Regina’s dreams. It’s like Regina’s remembering a ghost of a ghost, the truth of her life smudged and written over until there was only myth.

Regina thinks maybe she should have taken that psych eval, although she’s not sure what she would tell the therapist. She doesn’t think “So when they found me on the street, they told me that my life in an enchanted forest was an elaborate delusion brought on by a traumatic break and oh by the way, I’ve been having dreams about those memories again and also another universe where I have a maybe-girlfriend who was also in my memories of the forest. So what do you think, this is Freudian?”

Something’s not right, Regina thinks, about her world. There are 14 years of her life she lived that they tell her she didn’t. Sometimes she’ll sit with Rocinante, just to remember Bug from all the ways that Rocinante is not Bug, and that’s not something she could have made up.

Regina counts her years backwards and can find no gaps. She’s pretty sure she would remember a girlfriend, especially one who looked just like Emma would, a decade and some later. And an Emma does exist, she’s sure, but she doesn’t exist in the way that Regina remembers her existing, with a last name that’s not her own in a world that’s not hers either-

And Regina couldn’t have known that, not if she’d never met Emma. There’s that thread again, just loose enough that Regina can tug on it. If she just pulls hard enough-

A knock on her door; the thread slips through her fingers. Cursing, she gets up to see who it is.

“Hey, Regina.” Daniel says. “I just thought I’d stop by and see how you were doing. Figured you could use some groceries since I know you like to forget to buy them and eat takeout for weeks instead. It’s not good for you, y’know.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.” Regina says, moving to the side to let him in.

“Of course. What’re boyfriends for if not making sure their shot girlfriends are doing well?”

What. That doesn’t seem true, but there’s truth in his actions. Daniel knows where all of her silverware and pots are (Regina realizes that she doesn’t even know where they all are in this kitchen) and he moves with a comfort born from repetition.

“Why did you want to work the stables?” Regina asks abruptly.

Daniel hums, “I wanted to work with horses, I guess.” He says.

“That’s it? No other reason? Just a lifelong desire to work in the stables?” She presses

He frowns, “When you put it that way, it sounds less great. I suppose so. It’s not like there was anything else to do in Storybrooke.”

He clumsily kisses her and there’s nothing where she’s certain there’s should have been everything. This world is flat, she realizes, where they’re just background characters in someone else’s story, not worth the thought of better lives than “the boy who wanted to work in the stables.”

She is no closer to understanding what’s happening or what she’s supposed to be looking for, but sometimes it’s enough to know what she’s not looking for. And where it isn’t, Regina still has faith.

It will be enough, has to be enough.

* * *

“You’re doing _what?_ ” The captain asks, surprisingly calm. She can see the vein in his neck belie a twitch.

“Putting in my two weeks’ notice.” Regina says again, moving to press the paperwork into his hands. When he doesn’t take it, she places it on his desk.

“But _why?_ ”

Regina can’t tell him that she’s not sure about the _why_. This life doesn’t seem like her own, sometimes, like she’s living a life meant for someone else. Regina loves this city she considers her own, is proud of her work that keeps it safe, but it’s not the life she’s supposed to be living. She can’t tell him that she knows it, a truth etched in her bones, that her life is somewhere else, waiting for her to find it again.

“I don’t think it’s the right career.” She says in lieu of that.

“Bullshit.” He spits, swiping at the paperwork, “You’re going to be one of the finest detectives in this department and you know it. Look, I get it, rookie thing, getting shot. Heat of the moment, whatever. Tell you what. I’ll keep these papers. Take two weeks vacation. You haven’t taken a single day since you started and the union’s breathing down my neck anyway. Two weeks, get your head back on straight, and don’t throw away your life like this.”

It’s that last part that settles it for her, the voice of a mother a lifetime ago twiceover, but she doesn’t point that out. By the time he accepts it, she’ll be two weeks and another lifetime away.

* * *

“I’m sorry, Daniel. I think...this may have been the wrong world for us.”

He’s a good man, hugs her and tries to understand, even when she’s sure he doesn’t, not when she barely does.

The goodbye doesn’t hurt as much as she thought it would, the space she had allocated for it in her heart bigger than it needed to be this time around.

_(Better safe than sorry; the weightlessness of dust in the wind is a harsh lie.)_

* * *

Daniel had mentioned a Storybrooke, which appears on no maps, digital or printed. It takes her a staggering amount of effort to find it mentioned in passing in a PDF of someone’s road trip through Maine, find the person who wrote the PDF, and then try to retrace their steps.

As she’s driving down the interstate, she wonders if she’s insane, chasing the ghost of memories that haunt her. When she’s certain she’ll turn back, return to a life where happiness is a likelihood, not a false prize baited to her, she’ll tug on those threads again. They lead nowhere, but they feel _real_ , and it’s enough.

There are worse ghosts to chase; she feels like she’s chased them before too. But as she drives up to the ‘Welcome to Storybrooke’ sign she thinks this is what she was looking for.


	3. Chapter 3

Emma meets Regina by a stroke of good misfortune (or a particularly sloppy Author’s pen) and years later she still does not know whether this was a kindness or an unkindness.

A kindness, because Emma has grown up lonely and Regina does not look at her like Cora’s wrath sits behind her eyes.

An unkindness, because soon after Emma would never meet Regina again in this world.

For there could have never been any real secret in their meeting. The fairies have always hidden their eyes within the gnarls of trees and Cora had long since claimed Regina’s for her own.

Even the threat of checkmate is a powerful thing.

Snow White sends Regina through a wardrobe at the behest of the fairies; to save her kingdom, they say.

(The wardrobe will fit two. It does not occur to Snow White to travel with Regina - what would have been the point of this endeavor if no queen sat upon the throne?)

The absence of Regina is a heavy thing in the cavity of Cora’s chest and empty as it is, vengeance is an easy thing to reach for.

Henry sends Emma away to save her, to the White Kingdom. She will not see him again. Vengeance is a blind thing, too.

(Cora wages war once more for if prophecy is to be fulfilled, let it be while she chokes on the ashes of her fallen enemies. Snow retaliates with equal vigor - she’s already lost, this broken child not what she envisioned.)

* * *

_“You’re going to catch a cold out here without a jacket. I can’t believe half a decade in Maine hasn’t taught you to fear our winters.” Regina says when she finally finds Emma._

_“Sun’s coming up. It’ll warm.” Emma says, but gratefully takes the jacket Regina had brought._

_“What are you doing out here anyway? It’s a bit early for existential brooding, isn’t it?”_

_“Nah, perfect time. I like to come out here to be alone sometimes, that’s all.” It’s unspoken that no one’s ever come to find her before._

_“Would you like to be alone? It’s just, you weren’t there when I woke up. I was worried.”_

_Emma smiles, “No, come sit. We’ll be alone together.”_

Emma dreams, sometimes.

* * *

“What do you think it means,” Emma asks Red, “that I dream about a life with a near-stranger and in a world and age we could have never lived?”

Red hasn’t seen her pack since she was a pup and even then, the way Emma says it, these are the loneliest questions she’s ever heard.

“I don’t know.” She answers honestly, “I think they mean whatever you want them to mean. But maybe you should ask them instead.”

That’s a tricky thing. Emma pledges now fealty to the White Kingdom, and the war with the Black Kingdom rages unceasing. If Regina is to be found, it is nowhere easy. And were she to be found, she and Emma would be responsible for the destruction of not just one, but two kingdoms. It is a heavy cost.

She says none of this, only “I would, if I could find her.”

Secrets should stay as such.

* * *

“So find her then.” Mulan tells her.

Emma frowns, “I don’t think it’s easy like that.”

Mulan has guarded Emma since she returned from the Black Kingdom. It has given her the luxury of time to watch Emma, well, become Emma. And so, Mulan already knows what she will say.

“You know I can’t leave my post on the west front. Snow needs someone she can trust out here. We’ve had an uptick in skirmishes and my gut says Cora’s planning something big.”

“It could be on the east.” Mulan points out, “This could just be a diversion.”

Emma smiles wanly, “14 years, remember? It’s here.”

And she’s not wrong; Emma’s years with Cora have made her an invaluable strategist in the war. She may be the only reason why they haven’t been soundly defeated yet. Still, it’s hard not to pity her, but Emma deserves much more than Mulan’s pity.

* * *

_“Run away with me.” Emma tells Regina one day over dinner._

_“I’m sure it’d go over well, what with my lack of an actually federally recognized identity.” Regina says nonchalantly. “Where would we run to, anyway?”_

_“I dunno. Somewhere that’s not here. Aren’t you tired of it? You have to be a hero and the only reward is to get up and do it all over again.”_

_Regina is quiet, “Do you feel trapped?” She finally says and it would annoy Emma, just how keenly Regina understands her, if they hadn’t already whispered these secrets to one another, one way or another._

_“I don’t get how you don’t.” Emma confesses, “Between prophecy and destiny and Fate and True Love and soulmates and everything else, it seems like our lives were determined before we had any say in them.”_

_“Would you give it up? Knowing what you know now, would you trade this life for another one?” Regina asks, even though she already knows the answer. They’ve seen themselves live too many half-lives to want for another._

_Emma can’t articulate the itching in her bones, how 28 years of running doesn’t just conclude in a happily ever after in a coastal city in Maine, even one that’s preordained. Regina understands anyway. “However, I’ve always wanted to see Boston; if you’d like to take a week’s vacation, perhaps?”_

_Emma brightens at this and launches into a discussion about the best hole in the wall places, a large number of them being dive bars._

“Why do you think she hasn’t left?” Mulan asks Red.

Red thinks for a moment, “I think you and I, we’ve forgotten what it’s like to belong somewhere. Can you imagine growing up with Queen Cora? How she must have wanted to have a home and a family? To come here after, to be a child to Queen Snow but to have already grown up too fast; she couldn’t have fit into the shadows Princess Regina left behind. It wasn’t fair to ask her to.”

“There are no winners in war.” Mulan says in response, “We have all lost much.”

“True.” Red agrees, “but it is still possible to lose less, and it is not weakness to want to hold onto what still lies in your possession.”

Mulan considers this. “But Emma doesn’t belong here either.”

“No, but she doesn’t belong here less than she doesn’t belong anywhere else.”

And Mulan can understand that sentiment, drifting has a way of becoming drowning, too slow to realize that the tide unmoors you.

* * *

_Emma and Regina have jumped through no less than three inter-realm portals for each other. At this point, it’s a given that if an inter-realm portal appears and one goes through, so does the other. Following Regina into danger comes as easily to Emma as Regina throwing herself between Emma and danger comes to Regina._

_That’s why it’s so hard when Regina says, “Please don’t follow me.” and closes the door behind her._

_It’s illogical, Emma thinks, to react like this. People who live together and co-parent their son have arguments all the time. It’s okay to take some distance when trying to force the issue will only make it worse. It won’t lead to packed bags and empty rooms and trashcans full of burning._

_(It has.)_

“What is she worth to you?” Red asks in a wolfish snarl and Emma’s never seen her like this before. She knew that Red had stayed with Snow after everything, fought Snow’s battles and protected Snow’s possessions with a savagery befitting the wolfkind, but she’s never seen that turned against her before.

“This world smells like rot.” She snaps, “There’s a magic in the air, like fog. My pack is dead, Emma, and I can’t remember where their bones are buried. This world isn’t right; the world smells like rot because we smell like rot. Don’t you see? We’re all dying here, all of us except you.”

Red doesn’t get angry; it makes it harder to control her transformation, but Emma can see the telltale signs of Red shifting - the sound of bones bending before they crack and reknit themselves.

“Wherever Regina’s gone, I think you’ve got to follow, Emma. And then, I think we can all rest. This is how our story ends, right? If it was ever our story to begin with.”

“I never told you.” Emma whispers.

“She didn’t smell like rot either.” Red says. Her knees hit the ground hard. “So make up your mind. Is she worth it? There’s nothing for me here, never has. I’m going to run until I reach the edge of the world. Somewhere between here and there, maybe you’ll find her.”

Emma remembers that following Regina into danger comes easily to her, as natural as breathing.

Red laughs like howling.

* * *

The edge of the world is a little less edge and more ominous whirlpool. It’s not so daunting, not when Emma has the surety of her maybe-memories. She doesn’t know if it was a life she ever lived, but where Regina is, Emma’ll make her home.

“Thank you, Captain Hook, for not attempting to murder us in our sleep.” Emma says; the years have rusted her already poor decorum.

“Captain Hook is a man of his word," He assures grandiosely, "and my debt to your wolf was a longstanding one. Are you sure of this, love? You could always stay. We’ll make fine pirates out of you yet.”

Emma shakes her head, “This is where I have to go.”

“Then you best go fast. The winds are shifting and the waters don’t look to be treating us too kindly.”

Emma looks overboard. All she has to do is jump, and land where she may. It’s a long jump. “After you?” She asks Red, who shakes her head.

“I’m not going. This isn’t a journey for anyone but you.” Red says, “Leave the dying to their graves, yes?”

“I didn’t want anyone to die for me.” Emma says.

Red laughs. It comes out like a whine, tired from disuse and worn from the years. “No one asks to die, Emma. Sometimes that’s just the way the dice are cast. You’ll remember us, won’t you? Where our bones are buried?”

“I will.” Emma assures.

She jumps. It’s easy. After the leap, all she has to do is have faith. And faith in Regina comes easily to her, as natural as breathing.


	4. Chapter 4

Emma washes up on a sandy shore. The coastline is unfamiliar, as is the architecture. When she calls out, nothing answers save for her echo, faint against the sound of the lapping waves.

She makes her way to the docks and then follows it to the streets. The town is empty. She recognizes the carriages as not-carriages and then horseless carriages and then cars and piece by piece, she puts her world back together.

This is what it must feel like, Emma thinks, to finally be home.

She wanders down Main Street, where cars have been abandoned in the middle of the roads and shops have been left unlocked. A slight clicking noise interrupts her reverie and she looks over to see a car, the source of the clicking. Its color reminds her of Regina’s horse. Emma can see movement from within a shop nearby.

She ducks into Granny’s to find-

Regina looks up at the bell ringing, hand going straight to a holster she doesn’t have anymore. It’s her, it’s-

“It’s you.” Emma says.

Regina hesitates, “This might sound crazy, but, I think we’ve met before. But only-”

“In my dreams.” Emma finishes; she can barely contain the excitement in her voice. And why would she want to? “Mine too! Although I believe we’ve also met in this lifetime, when you saved me.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Regina says, the threads come more easily now, the entire fabric unravelling as she speaks, “from your runaway horse.”

Emma smiles a crooked grin, “But it’s nice to meet the you from my dreams, Regina.”

Regina smile back, “Likewise. It’s good to know I wasn’t just going crazy.” She sticks her hand out. Emma doesn’t hesitate to take it.

Emma had become a powerful sorceress in her own right, her magic always close to the surface, ready to spark, and Regina’s magic had always been there, waiting.

And together, theirs is a world-shifting, curse-breaking sort of power. 

The Story cracks.

And inertia is a double-edged blade. Objects at rest and objects in motion.

The Story cracks.

* * *

Regina blinks. “I’m going to kill him.” she declares emphatically.

“While I support you wholeheartedly in the apprehension of whoever did this, I feel that it's my responsibility as sheriff to stop you from the entire murder thing and implicating me as an accomplice in the process. Before that, catch the rest of the class up?” Emma asks. “What the fuck just happened?”

“There is only one cretin powerful enough to trap us not only in one Author’s story, but me in a second Author’s story, and _arrogant_ enough to think that his shoddy writing could always withstand any kind of scrutiny.”

“Rumpelstiltskin.” Emma agrees. “The man’s had all this time to hole away, it’s gonna take a lot of work to find him when he doesn’t want to be found.”

“We just broke not one, but two very powerful spells, specifically cast to keep us imprisoned. I think we can handle an imp past his prime.”

Emma snorts, “Yeah, we can.” She leans over to kiss Regina because she can, because this is their truth.

Regina rolls her eyes, “Stop that. I’m trying to channel my rage into finding and having some very strong words with Rumpel.” but she makes no effort to move away.

Emma looks at Regina, who shifts under its intensity. “At the risk of sounding like your parents, I knew we’d find each other, eventually.” she says.

Emma smiles at that, “Yeah. Always.”

And so ended the reigns of the White Kingdom and the Black Kingdom, lost along with the storybook.

Prophecy has a way of doing that, coming true.


End file.
